1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a diagnosis support system for providing information necessary for diagnosis to each medical institution from a data center storing together medical data obtained from a plurality of medical institutions. Further, the present invention relates to a diagnosis support method and a database server to be used in such a diagnosis support system.
2. Description of a Related Art
Conventionally, in medical institutions of medical practitioners or hospitals, medical images are imaged by using a medical imaging device that utilizes radiations (X-rays, α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays, electron beams, ultraviolet rays, etc.), ultrasonic waves, MR (magnetic resonance), etc. Such a medical image needs to be stored in order to learn the change of a patient's state of disease, and it is also required by law to store the medical image for a predetermined period. Therefore, in the medical institutions, it becomes necessary to store a large number of medical images. Conventionally, films or the like, on which medical images are imaged, are stored. Therefore, it has been a great burden for the medical institutions to ensure a space for storing the medical images and to manage and retrieve the medical images.
In recent years, the digitization of the medical imaging devices is in progress, and it becomes possible to reduce the storage space for the medical images and to save the man-hours required for the management and the retrieval by recording the medical images in an optical disk, a magnetic disk, etc., as image data. However, since the amount of image data for a single medical image is large, even if the medical images are recorded in the optical disk, a large number of optical disks are required in order to store the image data for a predetermined period.
Therefore, a medical image centralized management system is realized, in which image data obtained in a plurality of medical institutions are stored together in a database server provided in a data center located a distance from the medical institutions, thereby the need for each medical institution to individually store recording media in which image data are recorded is removed, and the space and cost required therefor can be reduced.
Incidentally, there may be some cases where a doctor refers to a case image when explaining the result of diagnosis to a patient or when a rare case image is imaged or when diagnosing a patient having a disease in a field other than his professional field. In such cases, it is preferable for a doctor to be able to refer to most recent case images relating to various diseases and to select easy-to-see case images of quality relating to a single disease from among a large number of case images. Further, it is convenient if a doctor can refer to a case image in accordance with the degree of advanced state of disease.
As a related technique, JP-A-2003-325458 discloses a disease candidate information output system capable of always outputting a proper diagnostic result or a medical policy without depending on the ability of a doctor or a person who examines a medical image. In this disease candidate information output system, a case database stores a large amount of case image data and diagnosis data relating to past diagnoses, and it is possible for a client terminal connected to the system via a network to obtain disease candidate information by inputting image data to be processed and information about the condition of disease, therefore, it is possible even for a small-scale hospital to obtain disease candidate information by utilizing a large amount of case image data and diagnosis data.
According to JP-A-2003-325458, management of client terminals by the server is made possible by providing use information recording means for recording the information output number, the data transmission and reception capacity, etc. by each client terminal to the server, and making the server calculate charge information. Further, by providing case register means to client terminals connected via a network, transmitting diagnosed image data or information about the condition of disease and disease information to the server from the client terminals, and further accumulating and storing image data and diagnosis data in the case database, it becomes possible to refer to a large number of cases, thereby it is possible to obtain more accurate and extensive disease candidate information.